Comments on: The Problem of DirectX http://segonmedia.com/2009/01/11/the-problem-of-directx/ Yet Another Media Criticism Blog Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:43:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Seg http://segonmedia.com/2009/01/11/the-problem-of-directx/comment-page-1/#comment-284 Seg Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:41:03 +0000 http://segonmedia.com/?p=59#comment-284 @Ken The thing is with the bi-monthly DirectX updates is that they don't 'hurt' the older versions. If anything, they improve driver support of older games. Case in point: With Strong Bad, we found that people who had '_27' but nothing further would sometimes have the 'missing eyes' bug. This is where some textures wouldn't show up, most commonly eyes ( A very scary looking Homestar, I must say! ). Even with the latest drivers installed, same problem. Once they updated DirectX, the eyes were fixed. No one has reported any funny business with other games besides performing better in some cases, so I don't think including the latest is a backwards compatibility risk. I wish I knew a better venue to have this discussion. I've used the 'send feedback' button in Windows 7, but I might as well piss in the wind doing that. If part of the Windows strategy is to encourage gaming on Windows, a little help on the tech would be nice. @Ken

The thing is with the bi-monthly DirectX updates is that they don’t ‘hurt’ the older versions. If anything, they improve driver support of older games.

Case in point: With Strong Bad, we found that people who had ‘_27′ but nothing further would sometimes have the ‘missing eyes’ bug. This is where some textures wouldn’t show up, most commonly eyes ( A very scary looking Homestar, I must say! ). Even with the latest drivers installed, same problem. Once they updated DirectX, the eyes were fixed. No one has reported any funny business with other games besides performing better in some cases, so I don’t think including the latest is a backwards compatibility risk.

I wish I knew a better venue to have this discussion. I’ve used the ‘send feedback’ button in Windows 7, but I might as well piss in the wind doing that. If part of the Windows strategy is to encourage gaming on Windows, a little help on the tech would be nice.

]]> By: Ken http://segonmedia.com/2009/01/11/the-problem-of-directx/comment-page-1/#comment-277 Ken Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:56:54 +0000 http://segonmedia.com/?p=59#comment-277 Awesome post, and I finally understand what you were tweeting about. I didn't realize that one major version didn't update the previous, but they do the same thing with .NET, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. And the impossible versioning is inexcusable - they should at least have build numbers. My only thought with that (since they don't seem to be continuing that awful trend in DX10) is that perhaps there is an error with how some legacy games view the version, and anything different from 4.09.00.0904 would bork it up somehow. The following is all speculation by someone who is not in the game industry and stuff you probably thought of days ago: My thoughts on the versions released with Windows 7 beta is that they are using "legacy" releases for compatibility-only purposes at this point, with up-to-date versions slated for internal testing and release candidates: after all, the public beta is something of a PR release too, and if the updates don't mesh, it won't look good. I'm curious if they release a separate version to developers, or if you (or your company) could get a custom build with alpha-level but up-to-date DX support. As far as updates go, the general rule is security and stability updates in monthly windows updates, and feature updates (and, starting with vista, secure development cycle-triggered code changes) in service packs. The way the release schedule looks, directx must be a feature update in their eyes, and they decided to put the onus on the developer to bundle a new release to take advantage of a certain feature before the general release. It may also be an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, as unrequested updates could nuke certain pieces of previously fully functional games. Again, that's all sleepy speculation. Thanks for laying it out for me - I can finally wrap my head around it. Awesome post, and I finally understand what you were tweeting about. I didn’t realize that one major version didn’t update the previous, but they do the same thing with .NET, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. And the impossible versioning is inexcusable – they should at least have build numbers. My only thought with that (since they don’t seem to be continuing that awful trend in DX10) is that perhaps there is an error with how some legacy games view the version, and anything different from 4.09.00.0904 would bork it up somehow.

The following is all speculation by someone who is not in the game industry and stuff you probably thought of days ago:

My thoughts on the versions released with Windows 7 beta is that they are using “legacy” releases for compatibility-only purposes at this point, with up-to-date versions slated for internal testing and release candidates: after all, the public beta is something of a PR release too, and if the updates don’t mesh, it won’t look good. I’m curious if they release a separate version to developers, or if you (or your company) could get a custom build with alpha-level but up-to-date DX support.

As far as updates go, the general rule is security and stability updates in monthly windows updates, and feature updates (and, starting with vista, secure development cycle-triggered code changes) in service packs. The way the release schedule looks, directx must be a feature update in their eyes, and they decided to put the onus on the developer to bundle a new release to take advantage of a certain feature before the general release. It may also be an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, as unrequested updates could nuke certain pieces of previously fully functional games.

Again, that’s all sleepy speculation. Thanks for laying it out for me – I can finally wrap my head around it.

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